Telephone systems and services provide users with many benefits but also provide users with problems such as unwanted interruptions from calls. Unwanted telephone calls consist of intrusive sales calls, fraudulent promotions and other solicitations, and malicious calls intended to harass or intimidate.
Systems and methods have been disclosed in the prior art for reducing or eliminating unwanted telephone calls that have received varying degrees of success and user satisfaction. These systems and methods may be categorized into deterministic and nondeterministic solutions. Nondeterministic solutions are those, which do not have an immediate and verifiable result. One example of a nondeterministic solution is to answer the telephone call, then upon discovering the same call is from an unwanted source, simply ask the calling party not to call back again and abruptly end the call. Nondeterministic solutions require one's engagement and seldom have any lasting effect. Another common nondeterministic solution is to place a telephone number on a list from which solicitors are forbidden to place calls.
Deterministic solutions for eliminating unwanted phone calls may be divided into two groups. These are special added services that are offered to a user by the telephone service provider, and electronic devices for processing incoming telephone calls in the users' own residence. Deterministic solutions provide the means for preventing the completion of an unwanted phone call. Hence, an interruption does not take place and the user is not notified of the attempted incoming phone call. Special added services offered by the telephone service provider are not universally available and become costly when the same monthly charge is incurred over a period of time. For purposes of reducing unwanted telephone calls, several special added services are often necessary for use in conjunction with each other. Electronic devices located at the residence vary widely in their means and effectiveness. Some are quite unique, but not all electronic devices are completely deterministic. Several electronic devices require the engagement of the user, while others necessarily inconvenience every calling party so that unwanted calls are more or less restricted by its operation.
Probably the most common single hardware device employed for mitigating unwanted phone calls in a user's residence is the ubiquitous answering machine. An answering machine greets each calling party with a message prepared beforehand by the user, then offers the calling party an opportunity to record a message intended for the user. When used to intercept telephone calls, a user compels every calling party to listen to the recorded greeting. By doing so, callers are detained unnecessarily and become annoyed when the user cannot be immediately reached. The user is consequently engaged in the screening process when listening to the calling party begin to leave a message, and then choosing whether or not to pick up the telephone receiver and complete the call personally. The inconvenience to callers becomes worse if the user chooses only to later return calls, after reviewing complete messages left by callers.
Caller ID is a special added service offered to users by a telephone service provider, and made possible by the use of an electronic device connected to the user's telephone line. Such an electronic device includes a display that the user can glance at upon hearing the phone ring. The display receives the calling party data between the first and second ringing cycles and provides a display of the calling party data to identify the party attempting to call the user. The action of responding to a ringing phone, only to peer at a Caller ID display to learn that the calling party is unwanted is often inconvenient. Caller ID has been described as the key element in the operation of numerous patented inventions seeking to improve upon the basic system and operation. Most such inventions are designed to determine automatically if an incoming telephone call is from a desirable and friendly caller, before the telephone rings for the first time. After a determination is made, the phone call is either allowed to continue to the user's phones or is blocked altogether. This is certainly a deterministic solution, but one which fails in practice. While display indicating UNAVAILABLE or OUT OF AREA are often considered to be a soliciting entity or person, this is not necessarily the case. It is possible for a desirable and friendly calling party to produce such a result, defectively so. In such a case, the user will not know that the calling party was actually desirable and friendly. It is also possible for a determined calling party to deceive Caller ID system based on the a manipulation of the Caller ID system. Also, where Caller ID is not available or is not subscribed by the user, an equally deterministic solution is not available.
Additionally, electronic devices located in the residence may intercept incoming phone calls and require a calling party to enter a numerical passcode. Upon entering a passcode that matches a user-selected passcode, either a separate annunciation is made or the telephone is made to ring normally. If the correct passcode is not received, the calling party is disconnected or sent to an attached answering machine. This is a very deterministic solution, but requires the user to distribute the passcode to every possible desirable and friendly caller. This is both undesirable and administratively burdensome.
The advantages to such a passcode system are many and worth preserving, if an improvement eliminates the inconvenience to friendly and desirable callers. Some of the advantages of the passcode solution include the definite elimination of unwanted phone calls without added monthly expenses incurred by special added services, the certainty of preventing deception by sophisticated apparatus, the elimination of user engagement and consequential distraction of momentarily processing individual telephone calls by visual or audible means, the enjoyable option of altering an older passcode in favor of a newly chosen one to increase the user's security, and the elimination of any inconvenience to a calling party compelling them to listen to a lengthy greeting intended only for message recording.
Numerous call screening devices necessarily inconvenience callers and cannot produce both an efficient and unencumbered experience for the calling party while affording the user a maximum of privacy. U.S. Pat. No. 5,751,760 to Fuller discloses playing sounds intended to deceive unwitting callers. U.S. Pat. No. 6,198,812 to Weber discloses requiring callers to phone a first time, hang up, then call back. Issuing a randomly generated passcode for each call is the method disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,367 to Robuck. This scheme requires the calling party to listen to a greeting in its entirety before entering the passcode, which is announced to the calling party in the greeting. U.S. Pat. No. 5,604,797 to Adcock and U.S. Pat. No. 5,812,648 to Wanner disclose a timer to confound callers by permitting a call to immediately pass to the user's phone only at certain predetermined times. Prioritizing different types of calls according to a schedule is the object of U.S. Pat. No. 6,359,970 to Burgess.
Some call screening devices do not use a ring generator, but only provide local annunciation of the incoming call attempt. U.S. Pat. No. 4,845,743 to Lutz and U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,013 to Rose represent devices intended for use with a single phone in close proximity to the user. A ring generator is necessary to activate a separate answering machine, and call screening devices that include a ring generator are disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,335 to Fuller and U.S. Pat. No. 6,456,706 to Blood. Other call screening devices utilize a ring generator to ring telephones and an answering machine such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,266,098 to Novak, U.S. Pat. No. 4,937,854 to Sarakas, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,563,935 to Small. These disclose a separate answering machine for recording messages and for providing a path for callers who do not have the passcode. U.S. Pat. No. 6,233,330 to McClure discloses a call-screening device with a ring generator to activate a separate answering machine and to ring individual telephones. In McClure callers are distinguished by the code entered and routed accordingly. McClure is an example of a basic downstream switcher. Other known systems include an adjunct unit that is attached to every phone in a user's residence. Each adjunct unit is designed to ring the single telephone to which it is connected. A single unit combination of a telephone and an answering machine that includes one method of call screening is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,205 to Kondo and U.S. Pat. No. 5,995,603 to Anderson. However, these disclosed systems require that a user be physically at the unit and commonly include some combination of keypad and display. Other known systems provide a telephone and answering machine combination that feature limited call screening features. However, the user is required to physically attend to each unit to change any of the settings, with each unit being limited to controlling a single user phone.
Caller ID has frequently been described as a means for screening callers. A device that blocks calls due to the absence of Caller ID information is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,228,080 to Nutter.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,351,289 to Logsdon is an example of other devices that block incoming calls until Caller ID information is obtained and the calling party is identified from a list. Blocking a call without seizing the line is commonly referred to as ring suppression. Following the Caller ID screening process, subsequent ringing is simply passed to the user's phones. In the system disclosed in Logsdon, delays can be annoying, since there is not a ring generator to immediately ring the telephones. This type of system is further disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,400,814 to Adams and U.S. Pat. No. 6,442,249 to Miller.
The use of a passcode is treated as an afterthought when the calling party is required to enter it only in the case of corrupted Caller ID data as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,150 to Schneyer and U.S. Pat. No. 6,298,122 to Home. A central office implementation is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,053 to Mitchell. A similar feature is offered by public switched telephone network service providers under various names that are generally referred to as call rejection services.
The use of Caller ID and a list to match individual callers with individual users is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,220,599 to Sasano, U.S. Pat. No. 5,394,445 to Ball, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,324,263 to Sherwood. Other systems require a list of allowed callers to be screened, or of callers to be blocked, before Caller ID information can be used to screen calls. U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,196 to Morganstein, U.S. Pat. No. 5,109,405 to Morganstein, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,276,731 to Arbel are examples. Devices have also been disclosed that use Caller ID information to additionally route callers, after first determining the nature of a call, such as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,644,629 to Chow and U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,408 to Morganstein. Because these systems perform routing, they also require a separate path to be wired to each telephone. None of these retransmit Caller ID information to all the user's phones and any adjunct Caller ID displays, however, see U.S. Patent Publication 20020018546 to Horne in which Caller ID is retransmitted when the ringing is passed. Retransmitting Caller ID requires retransmitting ringing signals since Caller ID requires interaction with the ringing signal.
Several central phone system designs have been proposed. Many require the use of special telephones or a network of special transceivers each connected to a phone, such a network as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,550,900 to Ensor and U.S. Pat. No. 5,623,537 to Ensor. U.S. Pat. No. 6,229,878 to Moganti discloses a computer and hard drive that performs as an answering machine and utilizes Caller ID information to handle calls in various ways. U.S. Pat. No. 6,456,715 to Kennedy also depends on a computer for use with a telephone. Commands are received through an interface port and result in a change of the connection status of the telephone.
Still others are intended for connection to and an active presence on a computer network such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,633,920 to Kikinis, U.S. Pat. No. 6,091,808 to Wood, U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,449 to Saxena, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,473,788 to Kim. Examples of those requiring the cooperation of a central office are disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,388 to Redd, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,414 to Bartholomew, U.S. Pat. No. 6,031,904 to An, U.S. Pat. No. 6,044,148 to Bleile, U.S. Pat. No. 6,134,320 to Swan, U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,779 to Council, U.S. Pat. No. 6,353,663 to Stevens, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,483,898 to Lew.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,252,944 to Hansen, II offers a small business solution by providing communications between a voice mail system and a telephone system or PBX, but does not provide for screening callers beyond listening to the calling party and deciding whether to accept the call or not, nor does this system provide essential central office capability. Instead, similar to U.S. Pat. No. 5,768,356 to McKendry, low level voice and command signals are conducted by a digital switching matrix. Many small business telephone systems are basically downstream switchers and U.S. Pat. No. 5,604,791 to Lee is another example of switching low level signals.
Although U.S. Pat. No. 5,881,134 to Foster has been proposed as a call processing platform suitable for homes, Foster does not disclose a galvanic default path. Because of an emphasis on one application of voice recognition to the command and control of the described call processing platform, the audio path is intentionally comprised of active circuits alone. Unfortunately, in the event of power failure where emergency or battery backup is not provided, the connected telephones become inoperable. This is a well-known drawback of smaller commercial PBX systems also, to which the same disclosure can be compared. As is apparent from the detailed drawings and description of Foster, telephone conversations conducted between a calling party and the user across the described call processing platform would not take place along a metallic path. Communications conducted in such a way can be expected to suffer losses and delays associated with the series arrangement of two codecs (e.g., coder/decoders). That this is the intended arrangement can be verified by noting that upon placing an outgoing call, digits entered by the user are first captured, then reissued by the external communications circuit. Furthermore, the dial tone presented to a user upon lifting the telephone receiver to place a call is either locally generated, or is converted from the telephone line. Additional limitations result from an external interface and a local interface that are not simultaneously and independently controlled. This limitation is apparent from both the system diagram and the flow diagrams. In Foster, the delay imposed by such a call processing platform is clear. In one case, the user cannot place an outgoing call until and unless the processing of a coincident incoming call has been completed. In another case, only one access to the message memory can take place at a time. Once a remote access by a calling party begins, the user is unable to use a telephone. Additional limitations are manifested in the inconvenience imposed on both the calling party and the user. The user is forced to respond to every call immediately, individually issuing a command trigger to dispose of the call in one way or another during ringing. If incoming Caller ID is detected, it is used only to block certain calls, or to allow certain calls from a list to pass. Caller ID may also be announced to the user when the incoming call is responded to by the user. But, Caller ID is not retransmitted, nor combined with the use of a passcode to provide the desired screening functionality. The local interface referred to as a Telephone Line Interface Circuit is particularly limiting as described by the same disclosure. If calls can be routed to one phone, but not another, a separate path would have to be provided for each. If only one Telephone Line Interface Circuit is used as is shown in Foster, then when one telephone is in use, none of the other telephones would be operable. This is due to the disclosed switching arrangement of Foster.
Some small business telephone systems use proprietary digital phones or standard analog phones to accomplish similar features for the small business telephone system. Such systems may incorporate voice mail and phone switching into a single unit, but only provide simple call screening capabilities such as a Do Not Disturb feature that sends callers automatically into a voice mailbox. The same telephone system also requires one to attach a computer to configure the system. The same telephone system does not retransmit incoming Caller ID information to any of the telephones in the system.
A direct connection to a device from a remote location for transferring files can be made in several different ways. Using DTMF alone to transfer data slowly by phone is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,923,739 to DiSalvo and U.S. Pat. No. 6,233,323 to Ali. A universal infrared remote control that can be upgraded by downloading new code data directly through a receiving port from the telephone line is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,228,077 to Darbee. However, the source of new code data is not disclosed. U.S. Pat. No. 6,496,692 to Shanahan describes a method by which audio files first selected by a user, are then downloaded to a device, such as a portable device. Several different devices that use audio files are mentioned by the disclosure, but a wireless telephone is the principal target. Following installation of the audio file, it can serve to announce incoming calls. Because a direct access arrangement is not expected to be part of many devices, to program these with downloaded audio files a separate programmer module is added to the scheme.
Using a modem to make a direct connection with a device to perform data transfer is common and well known. For use in programming a video recorder, the apparatus and method disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,756 to Levine includes a modem that is attached to a phone jack, and a telephone that shares the same connection. If a video recorder or other device is connected to the modem, the telephone can be used to summon a remote computer. In turn, the remote computer responds to signals issued by the telephone and transmits initialization signals to the video recorder, through the modem. Programming a video recorder by using a telephone is also the object of U.S. Pat. No. 6,510,209 to Cannon. Cannon discloses a telephone answering device having a call signal decoder and output adapter that is implemented as a remote programmer. A user placing a telephone call to the device can program the video recorder using the telephone. A cordless telephone can also be used to program the video recorder, if adapted to include a call signal decoder.
A well-known procedure for remotely accessing secure mainframe computers is one in which a call is first placed to a server requesting access. Caller ID associated with the calling party is used to return the call. After the calling party responds to the server callback, access is permitted since the calling party has been proven. If Caller ID service is not available, then the calling party can enter the telephone number manually. U.S. Pat. No. 6,480,586 to Hayes describes a system for establishing remote control of an appliance by telephone, using a similar method. In such a system, an Appliance Gateway is configured to control appliances and recognizes Caller ID associated with an incoming call from an Appliance Server. The Appliance Gateway then returns a telephone call to the familiar Calling Station, thereby establishing a communication session. An advantage of using Caller ID is that data can be conveyed by the Calling Station to the appliance without incurring a charge for making the telephone call. Caller ID is also described by the same disclosure as a means for directly conveying commands, a scheme that is compared to various dated methods of signaling an appliance using patterns of ringing. Where Caller ID is not available, FAX tones are transmitted instead. Means are added to the Appliance Server and the Appliance Gateway to distinguish between apparatus that can use Caller ID, and apparatus that cannot. The preferred embodiment includes a display, but where such terminal like devices are implemented, the user is required to go to the unit. An Appliance Server as disclosed in the disclosure cannot “transmit” Caller ID across a Public Switched Telephone Network, and references to the on-hook receipt of calling party identification at the Appliance Gateway applies to a locally generated signal. A “first data modem for sending Caller ID signals” is a similar reference. Examples of such applications are in a factory, or large office complex.
Several disclosures introduce a special intermediate programming module or transfer device to convey downloaded settings to a household appliance. One example is U.S. Pat. No. 5,600,711 to Yuen that discloses a remote controller to transfer initializing settings such as a clock setting to an appliance. The remote controller necessarily includes another clock that is made to agree with the clock settings conveyed by the remote computer, thereby permitting some delay in the manual transfer of settings to the appliance from the remote controller. The same disclosure does not suggest a relationship between the remote site and the Internet. Background information pertaining to the particular appliance must be sent to the remote site using the involved telephone, in the form of a series of commands. The consequential response of the remote site and downloading of settings can only take place using the same telephone connection. An alternate embodiment is disclosed where a microphone operates as the remote controller. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,123 to Chan various methods of error checking and a plurality of tests are disclosed to overcome transmission losses associated with the use of a microphone as a remote controller.
In the same way that a flurry of innovations describing various applications of Caller ID to call screening began to appear with the introduction of Caller ID services by the public switched telephone companies, an abundance of Internet related innovations has appeared with the wide spread use of the Internet. U.S. Pat. No. 6,031,904 to An and U.S. Pat. No. 6,445,694 to Swartz disclose means for employing an Internet webpage to establish central office control of a subscriber's phone service. A device that accesses the Internet directly is referred to as an Internet appliance. Such a device typically places an outgoing call, the call being made automatically or under the direction of a user. Once a connection is made to a certain IP address, the device transfers selected files. A method and apparatus representing an Internet appliance is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,012,088 to Li and U.S. Pat. No. 6,370,141 to Giordano, III. U.S. Pat. No. 6,457,038 to DeFosse discloses a local area network comprised of a host and numerous application controllers, each application controller being associated with a vending machine. Data pertaining to the disposition of each vending machine is received by the host from all the application controllers, then exchanged with a further wide area network. The data is finally placed into a database accessible across the Internet. An answering machine periodically connects to the Internet to check for emails and downloads new emails for the user is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,052,442 to Cooper.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,483,906 to Iggulden discloses accessing an Internet website to establish various settings and preferences there, followed by the downloading of the settings to the same computer used to access the Internet website. The settings are then conveyed to the appliance by a portable transfer device. The same disclosure includes one embodiment in which the settings are downloaded directly to the appliance by a direct connection with the computer used to access the Internet website. Also suggested is another embodiment in which settings are downloaded directly to the portable transfer device from a remote computer associated with the Internet website. In such a system, subsequent user notification or access security is not disclosed. Each appliance setting operation is conducted substantially in a manual fashion. Every step requires the intimate interaction of the user. When the settings are downloaded directly to the appliance from a remote computer associated with the Internet website, this must be done by manually and temporarily making a telephone connection with the appliance. Some measure of security is inherent in the connecting and disconnecting of an appliance from the telephone connection.
Therefore, there is a need for a residential telephone system that provides user programmable screening and security features for enhancing call management of incoming telephone calls while at the same time minimizing inconvenience to friendly and desirable callers. There is also a need for a residential telephone system and method as disclosed herein that provides call management features that were not previously capable by prior art systems. Additionally, there is a need for a residential telephone system that may be configured by a remote server to provide operating software, features and configuration management. The residential telephone system as described herein provides novel configuration management of a residential telephone system thereby providing the user with improved call management features and configuration control. There is also a need to provide a residential telephone system with an integrated messaging system that may be remotely configured. The invention disclosed herein addresses these as well as other needs of residential telephone users.